The Viridian Wand Chronicles

*~CHAPTER 5 - "Get Back"~* 

 

"No luck?" Percy inquired of the five weary researchers six hours later. 

 

"There are two hundred and fifty six possible locations where she might be. That's only within a 150-kilometre radius of London. We have to assume that she is that near as well; since we don't know where the members of the coven live, we can't know in what proximity Ginny had to be to the wand to sense it." Fred grumbled. He and George were the only ones still awake. Harry and Ginny had barely lasted an hour, though Caroline had hung on for three. They searched through the dusty records procured instantly from the London Wizarding Library - one that had pioneered in teaching books to Apparate to their readers. 

 

The books themselves contained maps of London, old and new, and lists of known magical workplaces. The large stack that had nearly reached the ceiling now was reduced to just a few books. 

 

Ginny yawned. 

 

"Up yet?" inquired Fred. 

 

"They're not in London," she said faintly, still half asleep. 

 

"Salisbury, then?" 

 

"Not Stonehenge, you fool. She is within the earth. A cave. Mountains. Hell is near, she says. 'Within the Mage'." 

 

It was then that Percy and Fred (George having finally dozed off) realized that Ginny wasn't sleepy. She was mind talking again. 

 

"Is she in the U.K.?" Fred asked cautiously. 

 

"Deep within. Yes, within the Isle. Hell's Bridge, she says, aptly named. Tonight. No more. Send only Harry." With that, Ginny closed her eyes, and relaxed into what appeared to be sleep. 

 

"That...was a bit odd," said Percy, fumbling for words. 

 

"Indeed. How opportune." 

 

"Do you think she wants to help you...or trap you?" 

 

"Honestly, I don't know. When Ginny wakes, I'll ask her...She'll be able to tell us. I trust her judgment...A better question: Mountains and a bridge to Hell?" 

 

"Hmm...I used to have a friend who lived in Devil's Bridge, in Wales. Does that sound right?" 

 

"Of course! I should have known. It’s in the midst of the Cambrian Mountains, exactly where they'll be. You're a genius, Percy!" 

 

"Really?" 

 

"Of course not, but thank you anyway. Now, I'm going to take a nap. Wake me up at noon." 

 

"All right." Percy watched as his exhausted brother finally laid down for a nap. Soon, Fred was fast asleep. But Percy had no intentions of going back to bed. He'd have five hours of fitful sleep already, and several questions were plaguing him. He sat down at a table. 

 

"Accio parchment. Accio pen," he said softly. With parchment in front of him and pen in hand, he began to write: 

 

-Why did Harry's scar hurt? Even if someone was communicating with You-Know-Who, You-Know-Who was incapable of acting on any plans he might have. 

 

-If the Future Bearer is just a child, forced to obey her caretakers' will, why does she trust us? Is she capable of understanding good and bad? Or does she mean to harm us? 

 

-Is Harry as powerful as the Future Bearer? Why is Caroline weaker than he is?

 

These questions bothered him. Harry's scar. The Future Bearer's loyalty. Caroline's weakness. None of them made sense to him. 

 

He glanced at the clock. 11 o' clock. It was time to wake Harry. 

* * * * *

"Harry, time to get up!" The voice was insistent. Harry slid tentatively into consciousness. 

 

"Percy?" he said, identifying the voice. 

 

"Yes. You've slept six hours. I know you're tired, but you're the only one who can help me - " 

 

"It's all right." He stood up, gently lifting Ginny off his shoulder and letting go of her hand. Settling her on to the couch, he placed a few pillows behind her head. Leaning over her, he placed a kiss on her forehead. Ginny smiled faintly in her sleep. 

 

Percy led the way to the kitchen. Once Harry had sat down with a bowl of cereal, the Minister of Magic

spoke. 

 

"I'm sorry." 

 

"Hmm?" 

 

"About...what I said about you. About Ginny." 

 

"It's a miracle, you know." 

 

"Me forgiving you?" 

 

"Ginny forgiving me." Harry smiled. "Is that what you wanted to talk about?" 

 

"No, actually. Look - " Percy shoved a list of questions under his nose. "Can you answer any of these?" 

 

Harry scanned them over with a critical eye. "Hmm...Yes. Some of them. The third - " 

 

"You know about Caroline? I thought that was the one question I wouldn't get an answer to!" 

 

"She told me. Both of her parents were killed by Voldemort - " Percy flinched - "And she was orphaned when she was six. She was raised by her dowager auntie, a kind-hearted witch, who taught her all she knew of magic, and upon her death Caroline was given to the Cassadaga Coven. She's never had any formal schooling. If she had, Caroline would be a greater wizard than me. As it is, she's no help in a duel, but otherwise she's on of the most powerful witches in the world." 

 

"Oh." Percy looked a bit startled. 

 

"Percy, you shouldn't be here. Go home to Penelope tonight. Be with your children. If anyone can stop Voldemort from rising again, it is us, but the fight will be hard. It's too dangerous for you to come. Promise me, or I won't tell you anymore." 

 

"Harry!" 

 

"Promise." 

 

Percy sighed in submission. "Fine, then." 

 

"Did you ever hear about the time that Voldemort and I dueled when I was a fourth year? Our wands reacted to each other, and visions of his past spells appeared from his wand. There was no spell of me. 

 

"At the time I got my scar, the current Squib was murdered. The wand went missing for nearly a year, according to Caroline, and was most likely used by a powerful Dark Wizard. To do powerful dark things. My scar had not hurt since that duel my fourth year, until last Monday at 11:09 PM. Perhaps, and this is pure conjecture, my scar hurts only when Dark Arts are being performed by the Viridian Wand, the Wand that was used in Voldemort's unsuccessful attempt to kill me. It used to hurt when Voldemort was...feeling particularly murderous, but not anymore." Harry went silent, surprised he'd said so much. 

 

"Why would he use that wand only to kill you?" 

 

"He must have been a Protector once. He was powerful enough. The Viridian Wand was the only wand that would enable him to kill me, if I was a Bearer. But even that didn't work..." 

 

"Don't dwell on it, Harry. It's long past." 

 

"I know." 

 

"Ginny was mind-talking again earlier. In her sleep." 

 

"I know that, too. It told her that if she kept on with that she'd tire herself out, so she fell asleep holding my hand. Her borrowing my power doesn't affect me. If you're wondering, it was the child who initiated the talk." 

 

"What is mind-talking, anyway?" 

 

"It's a mind-meld between two people. They hear and see through each other's eyes as well as their own. Someone as practiced as Ginny can also echo the conversation out loud, though it's lightning fast in actuality." 

 

Percy nodded, appearing interested. "It's a new magical technology?"

 

"Yes. It was pioneered by Lupin just nine years ago. He and Sirius developed it." 

 

"Have you heard from Sirius lately?" Percy asked. He himself had pardoned Harry's godfather just six years before, in time for Sirius to hunt down and eventually capture the man who had ruined twelve years of his life; Peter Pettigrew, known as Wormtail. 

 

"He's in Albania, I think. It's nearly eleven-thirty. Shouldn't we wake the others and get the show on the road?" Harry stood up from the table and walked over to the living room without waiting for an answer. Ginny was already awake, leafing through "England: A Wizarding History". 

 

"Ready to go?" she asked.

 

"Ready as I'll ever be," he replied. 

* * * * *

Caroline had taken charge of the car, procured from a nearby Wizarding Auto Rental. An Enchanted Muggle car, it was an ancient Volkswagen bus, circa 1967. Once owned by American hippie Muggles, all that could be said for it was roomy. She just hoped it didn't bust apart enroute to their destination. 

 

Oh, she had selfish reasons for getting the Wand back. The Wand was wonderful, as was her power, but compared to revenge it was nothing. Revenge was what she craved. Revenge on Voldemort, for killing her mother, her father, her husband. Dueling was beyond her, but an outright attack - the Wand and "Avada Kedavra" would take him down in an instant. Not that a little suffering would hurt. In fact, it might even be better. What she wouldn't give to have him in front of her, to make him pay for their suffering. Voldemort had not been kind enough to mutter the death curse, not when he had killed her parents. She had been six then; she was thirty-three now. In the twenty-seven years that had passed, she had never lost her rage. She had only bottled it up for now. 

 

Caroline steered the car carefully, oblivious to the conversation that flowed around her.

 

She was going to betray the coven she belonged to, going to kill in anger, going to kill him, kill those people that dared use the Future Bearer to raise him. She was right, wasn't she? Yes, don't ever think otherwise. It was justice, pure justice; it was all in her hands now. 

 

The clear blue sky stretched in front of her, wide and open. But in her heart she saw red. A dark red. Blood staining the earthen floor of a cave, seeping into the ground. 

* * * * *

They were on the edge of the Cambrian Mountains, due east of Devil's Bridge. By then it was four PM, though it would be five hours before dusk fell. They stood as a group a few feet away from the van. 

 

"Should we split up?" George asked, fanning himself with Ginny's copy of Witch Weekly. The June weather was hot, sticky, and devoid of the slightest cool breeze. 

 

"No, I'd rather not," replied Ginny, with a glance towards the mountains. While not exactly forbidding during the daytime (they were covered with grass, and the sheep grazing on it only added to the picturesque image) they would be alarmingly large and dark at night. 

 

"Oh, come on! Ginny, you've been watching too many Muggle movies on that dratted television of yours! It's a good idea. We can't possibly cover all that terrain in one group. Each person can go off, and - " 

 

"Ginny's right," Harry interjected, "we'll be easier for them to take on if we're by ourselves. If we do split up, we should go in groups." 

 

"Right on!" Fred exclaimed. "How about George and I go off to the south, while Harry, Ginny, and Caroline go north?"

 

"No," Caroline said softly. The other four turned to look at her; she stood apart from them, leaning against the ridiculously bright van. "I will go alone. There are things I must take care of. You stay here for an hour, and then set out in the groups you have planned. Harry and Ginny alone are stronger than you three, so you needn't fear that they won't be safe without me. In fact, they are better off alone." 

 

"Very well," Fred said, "best you go alone. We'll coordinate our plans here, and head into the mountains after that. Where will you go?" 

 

"North." With that, Caroline disappeared. 

 

"How does she know where she's going? Not only is she an American, half the mountains near Devil's Bridge are unplottable!" George said, a bit confused as to the logic of sending Caroline off by herself. 

 

"Even unplottable areas can be mapped, given time and great magic. Three maps have been in the possession of the coven since Morgan Le Fay's time. Even Durmstrang is on the ever-changing maps. Caroline has one, as does the Squib. The other is within the coven's home," Ginny remarked in reply. 

 

"Could you get it?" George asked. 

 

"No. The Bearer and at least one Protector must be present to open the gates." 

 

"How do you become a Protector, anyway?" 

 

"It is passed down through a family, though it is not affected by purity of blood. When Ron died...I became the Weasley Protector." 

 

"Ron was a Protector!?!" 

 

"And his daughter the Future Bearer." 

 

There was utter silence within the small circle. 

 

Then George spoke. 

 

"Ginny, you're off your rocker! Mica is dead. She burned up in that house with her parents, and you can't bring her back!" 

 

"They never found her body. And the fire was no instrument of Voldemort's. Even he could not have found them. Harry, like Sirius, would never have betrayed his friends. Fire is a weapon of choice of a Muggle." 

 

"Or a Squib," said Fred. 

 

"It's all in the history books, you know. Hermione discovered that I was a Bearer in our seventh year. Many Bearers are orphaned at a young age, their parents gone, murdered, dead. She just never though she would be a mother to one," Harry commented softly. "We didn't know about the coven." 

 

"That's horrible!" Fred was referring to Hermione. 

 

"It's true." 

 

"And if we want to find the Girl Who Lived, Mica if we're going along with Ginny's crazy theory, we've got to make a plan. It's an insane gamble, searching for a cave in a vast area of unplottable mountains, but I think we can find it. We've got to save her, and stop Voldemort from rising again!" George said emphatically. 

 

"I think I've got a plan," Harry said. He had been laboring over a piece of parchment for the past few minutes. "Llwellyn, Magehill, and Stonefox are the nearest Unplottables, according to Mountains of Wales. George and Fred, you’ll look for Llwellyn and Stonefox in the south. Ginny and I will search for Magehill up north." 

 

"Magehill...somehow the name rings a bell. I can't remember..." Fred muttered, pondering. 

 

"It's been used as a workplace for complex magical workings since Merlin's time." George said.  

 

"Still..." Fred persisted. 

 

"Oh, do shut up. Gather your stuff everybody, and eat. We're not going to be back for quite a while!" 

* * * * *

By the time darkness fell over Devil's Bridge and its mountains and consumed them, Harry still had seen no sign of Magehill. He estimated that they had traveled over four kilometres away from their starting point, in the four hours since they had left it. 

 

Ginny tugged at his elbow. 

 

"Harry, please, can't we stop? Just a minute, please...oh, it's so dark we'll never find it. How are we supposed to know we've found it, anyway? Magical residue?" 

 

"I suppose. Let's climb up over on that hill, and I'll have some of the tea I brought with me. Perhaps we'll sense something higher up." 

 

"Perhaps." 

 

Harry had barely taken a seat on the hill before Ginny giggled. 

 

"What now?" 

 

"Well, I...I think we've found the mountain, Harry. This is Magehill. It's just not very big." 

 

He hopped onto his feet in an instant. They bounded up the side of the hill, only to find a large, immovable rock blocking a doorway into the innards of the hill. He groaned disconsolately. 

 

"Do you remember any of Dumbledore's passwords?" Harry asked. 

 

"You don't mean..." 

 

"This appears to be the only way to enter. We've got to crack the password, or we'll never get in." 

 

"We could transfigure the stone...but they'll have thought of that." 

 

"If this dates back to Merlin's time, wouldn't that be Morgan Le Fay’s as well? Does the coven know of this place?" 

 

"I assume so... hey! The coven's password might work!" 

 

"Try it." 

 

"All right. Talamasca!" 

 

Nothing happened. Harry stared at Ginny. 

 

"You've got a thing for Muggle literature, too?" 

 

"Not me, the Bearer. She's quite fond of Anne Rice." 

 

He shook his head in disbelief. Then he sighed. 

 

"We're going to be here a while, Ginny." 

 

"Damn rock." 

* * * * *

The dirt room with the hearth was furnished differently this time; the floors swept freshly, a long bier stretching out in front of the fire. It was splattered with the blood of a freshly killed animal, now a sacrifice to the rebirthing of a man long dead. A few scraps of bone lay on the bier; they were far older than the sacrifice, nearly five years dead was the body that had once housed them.

 

The child had bathed and discarded the rough brown tunic. Now she wore long robes of red silk, shot through with gold. The sort of outfit that young Future Bearers wore. It too had a hood, as did most garments she had; best that her face be covered, Lowell had said. She unnerved people, she'd always known that. And Lowell had feared she'd be recognized. 

 

As what? the child had wondered. She was, to the casual glance, a nameless mute simpleton. The only truth in that was that she was nameless. And nameless and unknown, how could she be recognized? Lowell was confusing. 

 

She peered at her reflection in the pool of blood on the bier. She lifted back the hood, which has lined in gold silk, from her face. Her hair was long, to her waist, thick and wavy, a pale brown. Eyes a pale, smooth watery blue, face nondescript to her own vision; she was a moth, a strange and unusual spin on the basic model. 

 

 

Hearing footsteps, the child slipped the hood over her head, and turned to face the fire. The steps were quick and sure, certainly those of Lowell. It was, she decided, a most opportune time to have some fun. 

 

Flames, she addressed them emphatically in her mind, Dance for me. Do my bidding. 

 

The fire roared, and a small string of flames extended from it. She cupped her hands beneath them, caught them; they tickled her palms softly. In her mind, she chuckled. Go! She threw open her arms, scattering the flames, watching them flicker and dance without heat or burning. faintly she heard Lowell scream, but she was barely aware of her now. The twinkling lights filled every corner, and she giggled out loud in sheer delight. Then she sighed in resignation. Out. Abram had entered. 

 

Playtime was over.